The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem is a book I recently read, and loved. It was written in Polish in 1965, and translated to English in 1974. Lem wasn’t an author I had heard of, despite having read many science fiction anthologies. An online post that extolled him at the cost of my favourites like Asimov was what led me to this book. (I would have linked it, but I’ve forgotten how I found it!) Lem has been translated into 41 languages and has sold 30 million copies. But he was rebuffed by quite a few American writers including Philip K. Dick, multiple times, because he was perceived as being annoying, and had commented that American writing was “ill thought out, poorly written…” Also, his belief was that the only true motive for writing was to contribute to literature.1
It made me think of a post in one of the newsletters I often recommend to folks – Taylor Pearson‘s The Interesting Times. As I tweeted sometime back, his writing is centrifugal – pointing to books, posts and ideas, and centripetal – goes deep into an idea and provides food for thought (the latter is different from what Austin Kleon meant in the original framing 2). The specific post I am referring to – 4 minute songs, which was about certain rules that a creators need to follow if they want their work to be consumed and appreciated, was the latter, and made me reflect. I wondered whether, even at an individual level, we are increasingly optimising for others’ consumption over our own expression.
I remember commenting about songs sometime back – that I don’t recall my favourites, say Floyd, Knopfler, Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac etc having a consistent song duration. But now, “4 minute songs” are indeed the standard. Demand or supply, what happened first? Does it have to do with the abundance of choice now, and the demands of instant gratification? I myself am guilty of this when it comes to streaming shows. My decision is based on a couple of episodes. Or is it a function of money, and thus the need for products and experiences to be efficient? Systems in the arts and entertainment space – music, shows, movies, travel – are all busy cracking the process by which they can predict the audience reaction and thus revenue.
What are we losing? I have already written about deliberate choice 3 and self presentation4 earlier. And this.
When everything becomes image rather than action, you can’t judge the value of any act. You can only judge what it “looks like”. But when all of society is doing that, it means that you’re being judged on everything. After all, you may not always be acting, but you are always appearing. When it’s your appearance that determines worth, there is no moment to rest.
The Uruk machine
Our consumption is also affecting creation. It’s almost as though the promise of the long tail that the internet would drive never happened. It just brought in more middlemen. The next promise is thanks to the blockchain and NFTs, which could become the David to the Big Money Goliaths, and allow creators to monetise micro audiences with a common taste graph. Speaking of David, I learnt about the Bowie Bond recently (via), which had the future royalties on Bowie’s music as collateral. Bowie used the proceeds to buy back the control of his music from his manager. He still had to use financial middlemen for this process, but with today’s blockchain protocols, he could have simply gone direct-to-customer with a fractional ownership of royalties. And that’s the potential. But honestly, I don’t really know. As I read somewhere, yesterday’s revolution anthem is today’s chartbuster.
What could be possible when we optimise for creation and don’t just conform for consumption?
In the last decade of Beethoven’s life (he died at 56), his deafness was complete, so music could reside only in his imagination. That meant the end of his compositional career, right? Wrong, of course. During that period, Beethoven wrote the music that would define his unique style, change music permanently and give him a legacy as one of the greatest composers of all time.
As his hearing deteriorated, he was less influenced by the prevailing compositional fashions, and more by the musical structures forming inside his own head.
This holiday season, we can all learn a lesson from Beethoven
This is not to say that he would have been happy to have become deaf. And it’s also true that he was the 1% who became successful, as opposed to the 99% who tried. But maybe if success was defined as enjoying the journey, we might have different numbers, and stories. Of not just growth, but well-being too. Not of efficient existences, but of inefficient but fulfilling lives.
P.S. A good read on the need for slack – Efficiency is the enemy
1Side note: In one of the stories – Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines – there is a character called Chlorian Theoreticus the Proph. His books were profound, dwelling on species and civilisation, and strove to give answers to the universe’s questions. But he never got the recognition or adulation he felt he deserved, while others who were far less talented than him walked away with the honours. I wondered about the autobiographical possibility.
4 thoughts on “An efficient existence”